Sad story) QUESTION? (#10): Yesterday was one month from Valentine’s Day and on that day in 1986 a somewhat historic event for the State of Florida occurred. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it affected my life dramatically. There were some ups after that, but more downs. Things didn’t really straighten out until I met Cathy.
Before February 14, 1986 I had only one dramatic event in my life and I landed on my feet. That got me thinking about the nine lives of a cat. Now I’m up at 4:00 in the morning writing, and I appreciate that I am doing that again. Being able to do a little research and write a short story with photos in 4 hours is a lot more fun than spending 6 to 8 hours making one minute of a musical documentary that not many people watch. The photos add a lot to the stories, something I couldn’t do in a book. Plus, there is some instant gratification in seeing your positive comments.
But, if I keep doing this not all of the stories will be funny, or cute, or warm and fuzzy. I got hurt and I hurt other people. Some times I was a jerk. For a while I was actually crazy. I’d like to leave those stories out, but how can I ever really make a documentary if I can’t even be honest about my own life?
Back to the nine lives of a cat. I just made a list. I am in my ninth life, and following that analogy, my last. I can’t think of a better way to spend the rest of my life than with Cathy, in this house, with my friends in San Miguel de Allende. I realize that Cathy and I have some serious challenges ahead, but we can handle them. That’s life, until it isn’t.
One of the Characters asked me, “Scott, don’t you ever make any happy videos?” I do, but you need to go out and shoot those, something I haven’t been able to do since the pandemic. Thankfully Tonio has let me use his music. His songs give me a blueprint to follow, so I don’t have to make up my own ending. That is something that has always frustrated me when I tried to write fiction or a screenplay. And Tom Paxton has become a friend and is very supportive. I was amazed when he called my first videos, “Brilliant” and helped me come up with the term “Musical Documentary.”
My run ins with Facebook and Youtube have taken the fun out of making videos and I have enjoyed writing these stories so far. But what happens when I get to the dark side? So, what do you think? IF I ADMIT THE TRUTH, THE GOOD AND BAD, ARE YOU STILL INTERESTED? I’ll label those stories as (Sad stories) so you can skip them if you want.
You may have already seen this, but here is the Happy Video I made for my 70th Birthday. It starts with my 35th Birthday Party. June 20th, 1985 was half my life ago, and less than 8 months from February 14th, 1986.
(Note: Looking this over, I may have made it sound worse than it was. Who hasn’t had some tough times? By Valentines Day we should have nearly 40 good short stories.